Budget shortfall in Village of Santa Clara causes a stir

SANTA CLARA — A possible shortfall in the Village of Santa Clara has stirred up the pot in recent Board of Trustees meetings.

The latest came when the board decided to cut $15,000 to the Santa Clara Municipal Court turning it from full time to part time. According to Mayor Richard Bauch, the village is in financial distress and they are looking at making cuts across the board to many departments. The police department has seen Chief Lonnie Sandoval drop one day of work a week to help with the shortfall. He is also considering losing an extra day of work to continue to assist with the budget shortfall and essentially go from working five days a week to just three.

The decreased funding the village is expecting to receive from the Small Cities Assistance Fund is going to put them around $70,000 in the red.

The mayor questioned whether the municipal court needed to operate full time.

Municipal court judge Andy Gomez was in attendance at the latest meeting and argued that their court is very busy. Gomez was also upset in the way that Bauch had approached the situation. Gomez also made a claim that a possible violation of the Open Meetings Act had occurred during a Nov. 10 meeting because they discussed the cut in executive session. Gomez also stated that he thought the cut was performance based. Bauch stated that it wasn’t.

Village Clerk Sheila Hudman stated that some of the other cuts include $10,000 from the police department, $10,000 to her own salary and $5,000 to the animal control office salaries.

The board also agreed to increase utility bills for wastewater by four percent because Bayard charges the village and their rates went up.

The board approved to publish a notice of intent to adopt an ordinance that allows the use of UTVs on village streets.

The board also tabled the intent to adopt an amendment to the zoning ordinance that deals with the age of mobile or manufactured homes.